As roads including expressways are built and extended, traffic safety installations increase continuously to secure the safety of driving, and a lot of works are done for the maintenance of roads and installations every year. According to the related regulations, signs that inform danger (red light, protective color), signal equipments or traffic inducement personnel are required.
In a road construction site, traffic cones are installed at certain intervals to prevent the entry of cars to the worksite. If there is possibility that cars hit traffic cones by mistake, traffic inducement function is weakened and other cars may enter the worksite, causing an accident. Traffic cones have colors or reflectors to enhance the recognition of drivers, and it is not enough to prevent accidents.
In one example, Korean Registered Utility Model No. 0229370 discloses an apparatus that is used as a safety fence to control access of outsiders to a construction site when assembled and as a traffic cone to induce the pass of pedestrians or cars when disassembled.
In another example, Korean Registered Utility Model No. 0157079 discloses an apparatus that is conveniently portable to a worksite and waves a flag side to side with the flickering of warning light. However, this preceding technology uses relatively bigger traffic cones than general ones and multi-stage loading is hard, it has limited effectiveness in movement, installation and operation.
To solve this problem, the present applicant registered Korean Patent Publication No. 10-1078390 “Traffic Cone Having Alarm Function” before the present invention. Specifically, the present applicant's previous traffic cone comprises the support (20) equipped with the air tank (22) that is integrated or mounted detachably to the bottom of the cone body (10) and stores air pressure; the alarm unit that connects the air tank (22) to the pipeline (32) and the whistle (36) and has the on-off valve (34) on the pipeline (32); and 1st/2nd sensors (40)(60) that are interlocked with the cone body (10) and generate the actuating force for the on-off valve (34). When external impact is applied to the traffic cone filled with compressed air, the valve is open and the whistle is blown so that workers can escape a dangerous situation quickly.
However, the previous traffic cone sharply increases manufacturing costs because it is not compatible with the existing traffic cones. Specifically, the air tank (22) is required to store air pressure for the support (20), and all the components that perform the alarm function should be built in the air tank (22), which increases manufacturing processes and equipment costs and weakens price competitiveness.
It is also required to manufacture the components that perform the alarm function separately, which causes a waste of time and labor. Most of all, its complex structure degrades precision and makes maintenance difficult, thereby reducing the product life.